“You don’t need to worry about someone with a rifle.” Elle pointed at his binoculars sitting on the small round wicker table before her. “I brought them out and periodically I do reconnaissance. There’s no cover and no one out there. Of course, I haven’t looked toward town—” she pointed toward the back of the house, uphill and east “—but I don’t know what I’d see there except maybe a lot of neighbors pointing their binoculars in avid interest at us.” She grinned at him.

Now that the adrenaline that drove him out of bed had faded, his arm hurt, his head ached, and the nightmares she had described hovered on the edges of his consciousness. With a sigh, he slumped on the swing beside her. “How’s the journaling?”

“Interesting. I was describing yesterday, and either I remembered more than I realized or I was making things up. I have details about Rune’s shop, about the hypnosis, about that scream, and then the gunshot. Then,” she said as she leaned close to his face, her unusually colored eyes alive with excitement, “then I remembered my mom’s voice giving me instructions on what to do in case the rebels came in shooting.”

“Your mom? The rebels?” He was dumbfounded. “Shooting?” Great. Dumbfounded and repetitious.

“I am tucked in bed. The curtains are closed tightly. I see Mom tucking them into exactly the right position so no light leaks out. She sits beside me, holding my hand.” Elle groped for his hand and clasped it strongly. “I see her face in the dim light. I can hear people shouting in the street below. I hear gunshots. There’s an insurrection.”

She spoke as if she could hear everything at this moment, and he responded accordingly. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know, but it’s somewhere familiar and—” she reconnected with him “—and Adam, in my mind, I see my mother, and I hear her voice!” She squeezed his hand. “I have a mom. I know her. I love her. The memory is like having a platform to stand on, to reach all the rest of my memories.”

“That’s great.” Not really. That didn’t help him get her to safety. “Do you have any idea what your mother’s name is?”

She grinned at him again.

“I do. Mommy.” He leaned back with a groan he didn’t mean to release.

“That sounded painful. Let’s look at the arm.” She unbuttoned his shirt, and she seemed to be paying more attention to his chest than the buttons.

He supposed that made a kind of sense. Buttons weren’t that interesting, and in his day, he had had women spend more than a little time stroking his—

His watch vibrated and snapped him out of his reverie. He heard the thudding sound of swiftly running feet.